We are moving to a work-from-home situation across the world. For those who haven't set up a home office yet, here are our suggestions for a productive space to work during this modern-day pandemic.

The best option for home work is to close yourself off in a dedicated office space, or a quiet out-of-the-way bedroom. If you have younger children who need you near, you may be working in the middle of the family at the kitchen table. In either situation, a headset with a noise-canceling microphone is a must! We offer headsets with both noise-canceling and ultra noise-canceling microphones, for extreme noise cancellation.

We recommend an Active Noise Canceling headset for complete concentration, and with a variety of wearing styles and connection types, there's guaranteed to be a headset that works for you. The Jabra Evolve 80, pictured above, is a USB and 3.5mm headset with large ear cushions that completely surround the ear; and with ANC, and Busylights on the ear cups, it's a great choice for productive working and clear calls.

Other work at home tips:

•Don't sit in the same place all day. Get up and move! Wireless headsets let you walk and talk.
•Take a lunch break ... but don't extend it to all-day grazing. No need to gain weight in your comfies while you enjoy unlimited snacks from the pantry.
•Speaking of comfies, you may find that you accomplish more when you're not wearing pajamas or sweats. That's something you'll have to test for yourself.
•Take breaks ... but not too many. Turn off notifications for any non-essential tasks (such as social media) so you can focus on what needs to be done.
•When it's time to take a break, walk around outside for a few minutes. Get a change of scenery and clear your thoughts.
•Take advantage of collaboration tools and communicate with your co-workers regularly. A quick conversation can go a long way to building relationship, and don't forget to have team meetings to keep everyone connected and informed.

Take heart! This quarantine cannot last forever, and may provide you the time necessary for personal reflection and family connection that we typically don't get in our usual daily lives. And, once we get the "all-clear" to return to our work spaces, we go with the knowledge that we can conquer anything! (And now have a GREAT headset to work with!)

Call or Chat us now for recommendations! We are your Headset Experts.

Jeff Toister, a thought leader in customer service, has shared an idea on his blog, in this post: Anchor your attitude, that may help after dealing with unhappy, difficult customers (or colleagues).

Find an "Attitude Anchor." Toister says they can help to neutralize negative feelings. By focusing on something positive, the "anchor" will help you to recover a positive attitude after difficult interactions.

You are then ready to deliver outstanding service to the next customer.

Toister suggests these as "Attitude Anchors:"

• Pictures of family or friends
• Inspirational (or funny) quotes
• Upbeat music
• Conversation with family or friends
• Humor, including jokes and cartoons
• Going for a walk

These are great suggestions! What do you recommend for an Attitude Anchor? Share your thoughts by clicking on the Comments tab, above.

Sign up for free weekly tips like this one, here: Toister Weekly Tips

A guest post by Mike Dershowitz, the CEO of Fair Trade Outsourcing, a people-first BPO company that has service delivery centers in the United States, the Philippines, and Ghana. He believes that when companies focus on their employees’ social and economic progress, it motivates them to perform better at work and produce outperforming results. Contact him at +1 215 330 2895 or mike@fairtradeoutsourcing.com for an initial consultation. Read more from Mike on his Medium site.

Original publish date: July 9, 2019

Your business needs people. But people are more than cogs in a machine. Like it or not, a person’s history and current situation drives behavior more than you realize. Do you understand why?

Let me tell you about one of my US employees, a customer service representative for one of our e-commerce clients. He is a returning citizen who re-entered the workforce after 14 years of incarceration. As long as I’ve known him, he’s proclaimed his innocence. I tried not get involved, instead focusing on the fact that I was giving him an opportunity. Hiring him is important to our mission and vision as a company. We employ a person whom most employers shun because he has to “check the box.”

Over time, I’ve gotten to know him, and I see how well he performs, despite where he’s come from. As we’ve grown to trust each other, he has shared his full story.

At the time of his trial, he was too poor to afford an attorney, and was represented by a public defender.

You know what happens next. Convicted and sentenced. And then, just one year before his release, he learned that corroborating eye-witness testimony may have been coerced by the prosecuting attorney.

Prior to learning about this testimony, he simply thought he was a victim of the system. But now, one year after being released and two years after learning about this testimony, he believes that he may have been framed, simply to increase the District Attorney’s conviction statistics.

Can you imagine the rage you’d feel upon learning that almost 15 years of your life had been wasted, simply to advance a DA’s career with higher conviction stats?

How can I expect him to come to work and not be affected by what happened to him? The simple fact that he shows up to work every day and is able to perform and not scream at the customers on the other end of the line is amazing, and a testament to his strength.

Are you missing the point?

Even if it’s just you and your laptop with an online store, or a few select graphic design clients, there are always people in your business, in one form or another.

At scale, every business, no matter how automated, needs people. Think about this for a second. If you’re in your office right now, look left and right. If both those people were no longer there, what wouldn’t get done? Which customers would be angry, what projects would be left half finished, and what opportunities would be missed?

Nearly 80% of U.S. private-sector gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 40% of the global trade are from the service sector. What the sector produces is not a physical product, or a raw material. You might think that your company’s product is financial services, healthcare, or customer service, but you are missing the point. In reality, the item of value you produce is a workforce, and the behavior your employees exhibit to customers.

What people do, how they interact with coworkers, customers and vendors, and the work they accomplish is all behavior. Whatever you’re paying them to do, you’re really paying them to behave in a certain way. There’s a lot that goes into that ability to behave the way you want.

Meet basic needs first for employees who last.

Basic human needs come first, according to Abraham Maslow. Only then can Homo sapiens consider other things, like morality and self-actualization.

There’s a sad story about Former US President Bill Clinton and a member of the armed services. On a rope-line one day, Mr. Clinton was handed a letter by a woman who was an enlisted sergeant. She had two kids. Because of her low income level in the Air Force, she qualified for and used food stamps. Think about the cruel economic fact that the richest and most powerful nation on earth does not pay its service members enough to the point that they needed basic food assistance.

Most of you are meeting the basic needs of your employees (but not all of you — see here). If you’re not meeting those basic needs with the pay you’re offering, you may be sowing discontent without knowing it, for very basic, and understandable (from the employee’s perspective) reasons.

Before you can consider if you’re getting the behavior you want out of your agents, look first at your compensation policies and make sure that employees’ basic needs can be met on what you’re paying them. Only then can your employees, and you, focus on how to drive and produce the right behaviors.

Think about physical and mental health.

Employees won’t behave the way you want if they’re always worried about themselves. Once you know that what you pay meets the basic needs of your employees, the next step is to think about their mental and physical health.

I’m living in Berlin, Germany for the summer. Healthcare here is free for all citizens, and some non-citizens. As a business owner with employees in both the US and Asia, I’m familiar with a society that doesn’t provide healthcare to its citizens (the US) and a society where free health care is so bad that we must provide private care or take a risk that when employees get sick, they may not survive the care provided by their country’s system (Philippines).

In most of Europe, employers don’t have to worry about health care costs, and of course taxes are higher to pay for it. Despite its flaws, this system may be preferable. As an employer, you know that the issue of healthcare is not associated with your place of business.

While you’re thinking about health care, also consider mental health. Many people imagine that there’s a personal and professional divide. Come to work, do your job, and go home. But this mentality is short-sighted when you’re trying to get work done through people.

Certainly, most savvy managers and bosses know this. Many companies offer free counseling services at work. This is good, especially for companies who employ people earning above the middle class. But for those like me, where we strive to get our employees into the middle class, the instance of trauma and destabilizing family situations is much higher than in lower-income populations, regardless of geography. As good managers (and good humans), we must think about mental health.

When employees behave against the desired outcome for your business, what is really going on in their lives? For example, in the call center business, when an agent should do “A” in reaction to a caller, but does “B” instead, is the agent doing something amoral, or simply not following their training?

The optimist in all of us wants to believe that all people are good. When you look hard enough, there’s a reason why that employee either forgot their training or made the wrong decision. You will likely find a personal reason that drove the behavior. The mental health of your employees may not be optimal, even if it doesn’t warrant counseling.

Be sensitive to that. Lend a kind ear. Simply ask, “Can I help?” I always say my job as a manager is to put people in a situation where they can perform at their peak. Are you thinking about what gets in the way for your employees?

Conclusion: Repeated behavior from your employees is your product.

As managers and business owners, your job is to elicit the “right” behavior at scale, repeatedly. Not an easy task, as evidenced by the many times you’ve had to coach or discipline an employee. You pay your employees to behave the way you want them to behave. In fact, producing the right behaviors in employees is your chosen profession.

Are your employees satisfied financially? How are they feeling physically and mentally? What happened in their past, like my returning citizen employee, that prevents them from operating at peak?

Try to see the why behind their actions. It will lessen your frustration, temper your reaction, and make you a better manager. It promotes a sense of fairness in your workplace. Your employees know that the boss cares, so they endeavor to react accordingly for your business.

When you take a step back and consider why they’re behaving as they do, it can make all the difference, as long as you also ask yourself if you’re doing all you can to make your employees successful.

If you watched the recent NBA Draft Lottery, the event had a decidedly Vegas feel. With each of the bottom 14 teams in the league assigned chances based upon reverse order of this year’s record, excitement was created by watching the ping pong balls spin in the lottery machine – and, knowing the odds of the #1 pick for each team, the audience was clearly invested in the process.

This, says Darrin Briggs, President and CEO of Snowfly Incentives, is gamification in action. Gamification has become a common tool in today’s workplace to increase employee productivity, engagement, and job satisfaction.

When you think about it, the principles of gamification are all around us, such as at the grocery store, fitness apps, and Facebook. Briggs defines gamification as “Taking activities in life or in business and adding gaming aspects to an otherwise somewhat mundane activity.” Gamification does not mean playing video games necessarily; but it does involve reinforcing behaviors that will then have a positive outcome for the business and individual.

By creating small, incremental positive behaviors, a cultural shift occurs that moves everyone in the right direction. When these behaviors are tied to business goals, the program is meaningful to staff members. While gamification has taken a foothold in the business world, not all programs are created equally. Briggs estimates that 80 percent of companies administer gamification manually, while 20 percent use some sort of automated program.

Snowfly Incentives is one of these automated programs, offering an employee recognition and incentive system that uses principles of psychology and behavior modification. The business was created in 1999 by Dr. Brooks Mitchell, a behavioral psychologist, who specializes in workplace environments. Computer analysis, and now AI (Artificial Intelligence), utilized by Snowfly quickly determines what’s working, so that changes can be made on the fly for the most effective program tailored to each company.

This is a culture shift in the workplace. As Briggs says “it’s not a manager’s job to motivate people. What you have to do is create an environment where people feel valued and are motivated by whatever motivates them.” Snowfly knows that employees are motivated by different things: for some, it’s money; others prefer time off, the chance to wear jeans at work, a close-up parking spot … the list goes on.

“Our job is to create an environment to motivate people naturally,” says Briggs. “This does not mean you’re playing video games all day. It’s an aspect of taking something that has to do with gaming, but put it into an environment where you don’t see it.”

The Snowfly system has an interface that users log into, with a dashboard displaying their performance of different metrics, leaderboards, and standards. Employees can then “level up” (i.e. work their way up) to earn greater rewards. And Snowfly’s real-time incentives provide immediate rewards – there’s no waiting until the end of the week, month, or quarter to be awarded. Briggs says “If you want to change a behavior, you have to reinforce that behavior as quickly as possible after it was performed.” This goes back to Psychology, and the research of B.F. Skinner and Pavlov.

Another thing that makes Snowfly probably the most unique to the gamification market: by employing Vegas-style principles such as slot-machine style games, an aspect of luck (or chance) increases the effectiveness of the program and the long-term engagement by employees. For various goals met, employees are rewarded with tokens for game play, which then brings possibly larger rewards. The anticipation of the potential reward is part of the fun, and creates buy-in from employees. For employers, the costs are fairly minimal; however, the perceived value, says Briggs, is as much as 40 percent higher than the actual cost.

Gamification creates an environment where both employees and employers find mutual success; a well-placed and administered program is a win-win for all. For more information about Snowfly Incentives, and what they can offer your organization, contact Darrin Briggs at dbriggs@snowfly.com or 1-877-766-9359. Check out their web site, here: Snowfly Incentives.

"If I do well at this job, and am successful, then, and only then, will I be happy."

This is the typical thought process about the way to find Happiness: I must work hard, then I will be successful, and then happiness will be the result. But is this true?

Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage, has found that, in fact, happiness must come first.

"Waiting to be happy limits our brain's potential for success, whereas cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward," writes Achor.

With these positive skills, when you work hard, you're able to enjoy the journey more, which then leads you to even more happiness, because of success! In fact, Achor has found up to 31 percent higher productivity and 21 percent lowered stress levels are achieved, when happiness is an input, rather than an output. Why should we attempt this change? Is it even possible to learn something new once you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond?

Achor asserts that yes, it is possible for anyone to retrain their brain. And, who doesn't want to be happy?

In "The Happiness Advantage," Achor shares the 7 Principles of Positive Psychology:

1. The Happiness Advantage
2. The Fulcrum and Lever
3. The Tetris Effect
4. Falling Up
5. The Zorro Circle
6. The 20 Second Rule
7. The Social Investment Solution

These seven principles, along with tips and memorable stories supporting the research, are "specific, actionable, and proven patterns that predict success and achievement."

Bottom line: "Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can." This is an empowering thought, and with the steps that Achor provides, change is possible!

Take about 12 minutes and watch Shawn Achor's TEDx talk, and then buy the book!